[ajit_singh]

Don't want to sound harsh and insinuate anything but did Zappos make any profit? I think the merits of 'Holacracy' that Zappos and Hsieh vehemently propagated can only be validated if it made any impact on the bottomline.

The reason I am saying this is because I worked in a startup which tried posturing like Zappos- flat hierarchy, no cabins, boozing, chilling et al, while being run by a cynic CEO. The startup failed badly so this cool culture never got the limelight but my hunch is that if they had raised enough money and survived another 5 years somebody would have included them in their book or dissertation.

[1123581321]

Zappos didn’t posture. They really believed in what they were doing was good for the people who worked there. They also had imitators who were sincere. Sorry to hear yours wasn’t. Tony Hsieh was not a cynic.

I don’t know the financials pre-acquisition but I remember reading they had an excellent repeat purchase rate. Just the fact that they made shoe selling work online, in the first place, was also success as those were not considered viable ECommerce products in the first few years of Zappos’ existence.

[ajit_singh]

Truely believe that Tony Hsieh wasn't a cynic or a wannabe. My question was centred around their financials because I still believe that the culture that Zappos famously practiced is impossible to imitate without dangerously compromising the company's productivity. So I want to know did it work for Zappos either? Because I think it didn't but I don't have any data.

Disclaimer- Nothing against Tony Hsieh. I am sure he is a good person as I have rarely heard anything other than nice stuff about him.

[AlanYx]

While it had good gross sales numbers, Zappos had a cash flow problem prior to the sale to Amazon. Hsieh acknowledged this a few years ago in an article titled "Why I sold Zappos". (Even that may have been an overly positive spin on the situation at the time; I've seen speculation elsewhere that they may have been on the verge of insolvency.)